bjmidkiff2:I spent two years in Eastern Europe and heard some whoppers.1. The open window of a vehicle will make you sick because of wind passing across your face. Riding on a motorcycle? No problem.2. If a woman sits on bare concrete, no matter the season, her ovaries will be damaged. Yup, they really said this.3. Beer is not alcohol. This is TRUE.4. Homemade alcohol is safer than store-bought. I have no memory of drinking store-bought and getting sick, so it must be true.5. Sleeping on a sofa bed that has a beam running down the center is good for your back. The pillow-top beds sold in expensive stores will give you arthritis.6. Washing coins as regular currency devalues them, because it removes their "history" (as in germs and dirt).7. Drinking cold water will make you sick, and cold beer is good for curing a sore throat.I spent months trying to convince the students I taught that all of these were bs, but it was hopeless.

Wash your clothes on a holiday; wash someone out of your family.The Christmas tree must come down before January one or all occupants of the household will have bad luck for a year.Never hunt wearing a hat that has been on the bed that day.Be generous to others on your honeymoon; stinginess on the honeymoon brings bad luck to the marriage.If you make fun of a disabled child, you will have a child with a similar disability.January one requires the following meal: Collard greens, for wealth; black-eyed peas, for luck; sweet potatoes, for health.

We also had chicken soup for colds, ginger ale for stomach aches, and clear liquor (think vodka) for coughs. Everything else was treated with vinegar and/or honey. It is a miracle we didn't die.

I never give my children alcohol or any medication with alcohol in it. I use chicken soup and ginger ale, but they also go to the doctor. We follow two of the old wives' tales I've listed above. I make sure the Christmas tree is down before the first of the new year and I serve the traditional New Years' Day meal. My husband is from up North and he hates it, but the kids like black-eyed peas and love sweet potatoes. They do try to get out of eating the collards. They would utterly replace their green vegetables with Doritos if I let them get away with it.

Lunaville:My husband is from up North and he hates it, but the kids like black-eyed peas and love sweet potatoes. They do try to get out of eating the collards. They would utterly replace their green vegetables with Doritos if I let them get away with it.

Wash your clothes on a holiday; wash someone out of your family.The Christmas tree must come down before January one or all occupants of the household will have bad luck for a year.Never hunt wearing a hat that has been on the bed that day.Be generous to others on your honeymoon; stinginess on the honeymoon brings bad luck to the marriage.If you make fun of a disabled child, you will have a child with a similar disability.January one requires the following meal: Collard greens, for wealth; black-eyed peas, for luck; sweet potatoes, for health.

We also had chicken soup for colds, ginger ale for stomach aches, and clear liquor (think vodka) for coughs. Everything else was treated with vinegar and/or honey. It is a miracle we didn't die.

I never give my children alcohol or any medication with alcohol in it. I use chicken soup and ginger ale, but they also go to the doctor. We follow two of the old wives' tales I've listed above. I make sure the Christmas tree is down before the first of the new year and I serve the traditional New Years' Day meal. My husband is from up North and he hates it, but the kids like black-eyed peas and love sweet potatoes. They do try to get out of eating the collards. They would utterly replace their green vegetables with Doritos if I let them get away with it.

Actually, a lot of those have been shown to be more than legitimate by real science. Honey has chemicals (some of the same ones used in prescription cold syrups) that make it an effective painkiller and cough suppressant. Lemon juice will cut the mucus in a throat and help it drain. Alcohol acts as a cough suppressant, and tea is generally healthy- a hot toddy is, scientifically speaking, better than a lot of modern drugs in addressing a cough. Tone down or leave out the liquor for kids or mornings.

Using ginger to settle a stomach or soothe a throat is legitimate too. The chicken soup has no particular medical value though, apart from being warm and tasty, and most claims about vinegar are bunk.

aerojockey:Lunaville: My husband is from up North and he hates it, but the kids like black-eyed peas and love sweet potatoes. They do try to get out of eating the collards. They would utterly replace their green vegetables with Doritos if I let them get away with it.

I love 'em, but I'm much more receptive to bitter and earthy flavors than most Americans seem to be these days. I really do think that the soda and fat filled diet many people have trains their palettes.

For all the people bashing mythbusters.....very little of what they do needs the kind of rigorous testing that you people seem to want.For example: Will gas tanks explode when you shoot them?The conclusion was no, they used a variety of ammunition/rifles/gas tanks/etc to test this out. Sure, maybe in a 1/10,000 scenario, with a specific weather condition, gas tank, and bullet combination, they could have manage to get a decent fireball, moving the result from, busted to improbable. But for all practical intents and purposes, they proved it to be a bs movie falsehood. That is what they are doing. They aren't claiming it to be fool proof science, or at least I don't take it that way. It's more of a.....yeah, that doesn't really happen/couldn't happen/will happen, kind of thing, for most of their experiments.

the great thing about this is you can give it to them all day long. Snuggle them up on the couch in a warm blanket, hand them the remote and let them watch tv. I give them some (children's) Mucinex and (children's ) Tylenol tablets to take with it too. That is probably the only really effective medicines in most OTC drugs anyway.

/adult hot toddy add a good dash of vodka...take aspirin instead of tylenol// I add enough vodka to the hubby's so he takes a nap when he's sick. It's good for everyone!

///as kids we used to get hot toddy's and Blackberry brandy for earaches, sore throat's and colds: knocked us all right out

the great thing about this is you can give it to them all day long. Snuggle them up on the couch in a warm blanket, hand them the remote and let them watch tv. I give them some (children's) Mucinex and (children's ) Tylenol tablets to take with it too. That is probably the only really effective medicines in most OTC drugs anyway.

/adult hot toddy add a good dash of vodka...take aspirin instead of tylenol// I add enough vodka to the hubby's so he takes a nap when he's sick. It's good for everyone!

///as kids we used to get hot toddy's and Blackberry brandy for earaches, sore throat's and colds: knocked us all right out

I forgot for younger kids or if you don't have honey, you can use their favorite fruit preserve: cherry or apple are good. The pectin and sugar coats the mucus membranes like honey does

/I got a terrible cold traveling in Northern China; one of the local ladies made me a pork broth and noodle soup with lots of salt, chilis, garlic,onions and ginger. Made my nose run profusely but I felt so much better after that. She also said drink lots of hot rice water, tea, room temperature beer and take a slug of Baijiu (sorghum alcohol ) as needed/before bed. I think every culture has some form of "chicken" soup when sick cure

Corn_Fed:Sadly, Mythbusters fails on most counts. It does not feature good science, or proper experimentation. Anyone who draws conclusions from the ridiculously small sample sizes, and insufficient controls for variables, is only fooling themselves.

It's a TV show, not a scientific journal. i.e. lighten up, Francis.

/enjoy MB//occasionally yell at the TV when they are particularly unscientific///but yeah it's just a TV show